December 26, 2006, Bullion Basin (Crystal BC)

OK, here is a  report since we saw some interesting snow today.  Sonya, the dog and myself started up from the parking lot at ~9:30 this morning.  We were the first ones out and had easy trail breaking to the meadow at the head of the basin. 

We started up the west facing slope towards E. Peak and dug a pit about 200 vf above the meadow on a 30 some odd degree slope.  We found quite a few storm layers on top of a hard crust at about 3 ft deep.  Immediately below the ice crust was approx. 2-3" of unconsolidated 'rotten snow'.  Compression tests yielded easy, high quality shears at various depths up to ~two feet.  The easiest shears were at ~ 8" and maybe 14".  It appeared that these shear planes had faceted crystals from surface hoar late last weak.  We did not observe any failure at the crust.

Given the results of the pit we decided to seek out other slopes and headed back across the meadow to Bullion Peak.  We observed quite a bit of debris at the base of the NW face of Bullion Peak.  More trail breaking brought us to the ridge on the far west side of the basin.  Here we were caught by a party of one and we thankfully gave up trail breaking duties to the top of Bullion Peak.  Sonya and I skiied the far right line off the NW face of the and had small slabs and sluffs  release, but most of the slope had slid over the last couple of days.  Skiing was not that great; the snow was deep and wind affected.

We decided to call it somewhat early and climbed back to the peak for one last run.  We skiied the W facing tree'ed slope into the bottom of Pickhandle Basin and back into the edge of the resort.  This was a new aspect, but again we saw signs of instability - cracks, isolated slabs ...

So, it was kinda sketchy out there and the wind has been shifting around.  Everyone be safe.